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Sensationalist, fear-based advertisements like these, which use images of the worst global villains of all time to scare people, are all too common. Negativity is everywhere. It is the lifeblood of the current presidential campaign. It is also a common sales tactic for companies looking to move people to act. The question is this: Do scare tactics sell? Does fear drive purchasing? And can negative messages create positive behaviors?

Negative’s Not Working

My firm’s research shows that negative messages are not as effective now as they were in the past. Rather than building trust between communicator and audience, negative messages today are more likely to turn people off.

Regardless of the specific topic or industry, we repeatedly see how negative messaging can damage a company’s communication strategy:

Companies want to create a need in their consumers’ minds using fear, but generate indecision and paralysis instead of interest and motivation.

Opposing political sides respond to attacks by going after the credibility of the attacker, but the public rejects these responses as biased and untrustworthy.

Campaigners try to win elections by frightening voters with how bad things will be if the other side wins, but the public is more likely to turn away from politics altogether than feel motivated to vote for the fear monger.

The language of fear in sales has outlived its relevance. It’s time to infuse positivity back into persuasion.

The New Conversation

The roots of negative selling run deep, thanks to its long (but waning) history of success. Our culture has changed, however, and negative selling doesn’t resonate with consumers like it once did. No one listens to the salesperson crying “trouble right here in River City.” If Harold Hill showed up today, he would be met with more eye rolls than concerned customers.

Even so, salespeople today often find themselves hovering in the gray area between properly illustrating a need and unnecessarily creating fear, which ultimately costs them sales.

The new language of trust is built on a more positive approach to communication. Key principles of the new positive selling include:

1. Practice positivity without delusion. More than anything, being positive is a choice of words. A salesperson wearing rose-colored glasses who attempts to convince his or her leads that everything is great will find little success; people are smart enough to know better. The best sales language assumes the prospect has a positive outlook on the world without asking that person to subscribe to something unbelievable. Don’t tell prospects the glass is half empty, but don’t promise them a full glass, either.

2. Keep looking forward. When it comes to bad news, our instincts fail us. Our feelings are emotional, not technical. We delay physicals to avoid bad diagnoses, and we leave the credit card bill sitting on the counter when we know it’s high. If the markets are down, many of us avoid looking at our brokerage statements for fear of what we’ll find. At the times when we should pay the most attention to the news, many of us prefer to tune out.

Still, marketers and salespeople often focus on the problems of today instead of the benefits of tomorrow. Building trust with customers doesn’t start by dwelling on how bad their situations are now — it starts by helping them see a better future through the product being sold.

For large companies and politicians, the same holds true. Telling customers about your problems puts you in a position to make excuses for them, which instantly lowers your credibility in their eyes.

3. Be for things, not against them. Republicans and Democrats. Hatfields and McCoys. Corporations and activists. From politics to popular culture, everyone is fighting a battle, and yet our research shows that acknowledging these partisan splits is a recipe for failure.

In a world of skeptics, standing against an opponent is no longer enough to attract others. Companies, politicians, and salespeople must instead stand for something. Responding to attacks with attacks just validates the truth of the initial jab in the eyes of the audience and makes both sides look worse.

People today understand the world isn’t black and white, so don’t ask them to see it that way. Avoid defensive messages that make you a partisan of your own interests and provoke further responses. Opt instead for the positive message that defuses situations and attracts people who prefer positivity.

Staying positive doesn’t mean becoming a doormat. It means sending the type of message that people actually want to hear. Drop the negative language, focus on the future, and present values that other people identify with so you can change the tone of the conversation and get more people interested in what you have to say.

And yet, people will inevitably comment that if it didn’t work in politics, why do so many campaigns use negative messaging? The answer is simple: Negative messages drive inaction more than action. They cause people to stay home rather than vote. For some candidates, that is the key to success. But for companies and clients, it is always a recipe for failure.

Michael Maslansky, CEO of maslansky + partners, helps the world’s leading companies find the right language to address strategic challenges like crisis management and rebuilding brand trust. He wrote “The Language of Trust: Selling Ideas in a World of Skeptics” and is a frequent commentator on Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN. He was named a top thought leader in Trustworthy Business.

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